Heretofore, the usual apparatus or system for processing waste material to recover the components having fuel value involved feeding the waste material to a shredder or grinder, such as a hammer mill, collecting the hammer mill output on a conveyor which dumps the material in a bin and from the bin by an elevating means or drag chain to a vibrating feeder to again spread out the material before delivering it through an air lock to an elutriating chamber or air lift.
In such usual apparatus, the hammer mill and elutriating chamber or air lift are separate units of the system, and require interconnecting means to transfer the output from the hammer mill to the elutriating chamber. The condition of the waste material is usually such that it contains a fair amount of moisture, especially the garbage portion which gets scrambled up with the paper, wood, cloth and similar components. The moisture is not driven off and so remains in the system, and each time the material is transported it sticks together or agglomerates and forms large masses which must be broken down as the material is delivered through a rotary distribution device to the elutriating chamber or air lift.